From Big Oil to Big Poo, from cold Canadian winters to humid Texas nights - a Plucky Canadian girl gets plunked into the sweltering heart of Tejas.

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Wednesday, August 28, 2019

THIS IS MY LIFE NOW! Or, Change Your Life, Change the World.

Welcome
to the first installment of ‘this is my life now’!

I’ll run this whenever I
stop and realize my life is once again a rollicking comedy of errors. So, at
least once a month.

This
month I’ve been training for a new job, working at a church preschool. The
hours are perfect; I’m at work while Ellie is at school. All our days off will
be the same and no need to worry about summer care. I'm living the dream folks.

Alright
and I just have to say, I am really enjoying all the adulting. I show up twenty
minutes early as per my usual overachiever routine and it takes me that long to
get to the classroom because I stop to talk to everyone I see on the way in.

I just gab and gab and GAB. It’s like all the words I haven’t said
in the last five years home alone with the kids have been stored away in my
jawbone somewhere and it has all just come spewing out like hot lava from a raging volcano.

Again, condolences to my new co-workers…

But
oh, the BLISS of a conversation that doesn’t involve why we shouldn’t eat our own boogers
and why it isn’t okay to pick up the dogs poop with our bare hands. So
nice!

I've been decorating
the classroom, filling the ‘manipulatives’ bin, putting up the ‘Mat Man’ –
learning a whole new vernacular, FUN, FUN, FUN!

Not
to mention playing with the toys while I clean and organize them. I cleared out
a twelve-foot tall cabinet crammed full of books going every which way yesterday.
I took them all out and organized them by author, theme, and size. Oh my little
‘ole heart was SO FULL IT ALMOST BURST! So satisfying.

Do
I feel immense and inconsolable guilt about leaving Benji in someone else’s
care all day while he’s still so little? Yes. Did he walk into the classroom
and forget to say goodbye today because he’s totally fine and loving it? Yes.

Did I get offered a second part time job at their school too? Yes. Did I take
it? I get paid to hang out with babies and my own kids all day?
Where’s the dotted line to sign, lady!?

So,
we all know I just adopted a shelter dog a few weeks ago, add to that two new part
time jobs (plus the kids yoga classes on Sunday mornings) and the following was
bound to happen:

I
took out salmon to eat last night for dinner but it didn’t thaw in time (thank
you only getting home at 3pm because of Toby’s laser therapy).

Oh yes. Toby’s
herniated disks. Let’s throw that into the mix plus two new medications to give
him to keep track of. (We're having fun now my friends).

Back to the salmon. It did not thaw in two hours, surprise, surprise. I could
risk it but there’s no rice because I haven’t had time to get more. I switch to
leftover chicken and potatoes, proud of my multitasking, resourceful ways. I
open the Tupperware of chicken and potatoes and Benji calls from the bathroom. Mommy...mooooommmmyyyy!

He’s done number two and needs help. (Wheee).

As I go into the bathroom he drops his
flashlight into the poopy toilet water. I have plastic gloves nearby, something
I’m proud I remembered to do last time I was cleaning. So I quickly snap on the gloves, fish out
the flashlight and put it in the garbage (no amount of bleach on earth is going
to save that thing now).

I clean up Benji, console him (He’s in hysterics over
the lost flashlight and wants to go get another one RIGHT NOW.) Once
he realizes I’m not going to the store RIGHT NOW, he calms down and we go into
the living room in time to see Duke, on top of the kitchen counter island,
lapping up the chicken.

“DUKE!
DOWN RIGHT NOW!”

Duke whips his little Chihuahua head up so fast and the look
on his face is so surprised I burst out laughing. He leaps gracefully
like a hundred tigers are in his genome and lands softly on the floor. Then he gives me the 'what?' look and nonchalantly licks his paw.

I’m
agape. And out of supper options.

I
order in sushi and call it a day. I’m not proud anymore about having it all
together but…we’re fed and clean and everyone has poo'd and what more can a mom ask?

I changed my life by going back to work and mostly I love the crunch, the speed, the need to organize suppers and lunches and clothes in advance. I needed this. We needed this. And who knows, maybe I'll spark a love of learning in those little hearts that last a lifetime. You can't put a price tag on that.